Take It Easy
by MaidenStar
Summary: 'The first time he meets her they are so broken they should be reserved as character templates for crappy spy thrillers and airport paperbacks.' Four times he meets her and it is wholly unexpected. The fifth is very much anticipated. And they both come to learn that saving someone isn't just about not killing them.


**A/N: This is the first Avengers fic I've put up here and for some reason I was nervous about posting this. I've read so much from this fandom and it's all generally such a high standard. I suppose I'm a bit worried about letting the side down.**

**Anyway, this is basically just an AU idea I had for the reason why Clint disobeyed those orders from SHIELD. Also, this is much more film-verse than it is comic-verse, so any backstory may not be perfectly canon. Apologies. **

**Finally, this is, as the title suggests, extremely loosely based on the song 'Take It Easy' made famous by the Eagles.**

**Hope y'all like it and please tell me what you think and how to improve. **

**I do not own the Avengers, have nothing witty to say about this fact (because, frankly it's not a laughing matter) and I am not writing this for profit. **

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

The first time he meets her, they are both so broken they should be reserved as character templates for crappy spy thrillers and airport paperbacks.

Clint Barton, orphaned at eleven, ex-carnie and ex-soldier, was haunted by nightmares of car crashes and warzones, neither of which he deserved to survive when his parents and his comrades, better men than him, did not.

The nightmares weighed him down and changed him until he didn't recognise himself anymore. He had lost it once, lost all semblance of self-control, in a village stuck awkwardly into a small, ineffable space between active war zones and he found himself left with nothing when he was struck off in disgrace after he refused the offers of time off and help to recover mentally. He didn't believe that much would help him recover mentally from the things he had seen and done. And so he had done the only things he was really good at; fighting and killing, first in drunken bar brawls and then for whoever could write the highest figure down and put it in his waiting hand.

It didn't really matter who asked him and who they asked him to kill, not at first anyway, not when he was so poor he didn't know where the next meal was coming from. But after his first few jobs, his fridge was full and some rent payments had gone through, it was then that the lonely shadows spoke to him in whispers when he tried to shut his eyes and beckon a sleep that would not come.

His parents, asking him where their happy, carefree, goofy little boy had gone.

His brother, wherever he was now, telling him that he had always been an idiot.

His fellow soldiers, all those who had fallen while he somehow barely took a hit, asking why he was killing like this, in cold blood, and so easily when he had been the one who found it hardest to shoot when they first got deployed.

He had hated killing at first, detested it with every fibre of his body. Just look at him now.

All of them asked questions he could not answer. All of them begged him to stop.

In his whisky-fuelled haze, he thought that this was how God must have felt. All the time, there were people, smoky silhouettes with distant voices, asking him to change something, asking why, questioning everything when really, he was powerless to end the status quo now it had been established. And so it went on.

Except now, it was like it had been when he joined the army. Killing was starting to make him feel sick again; a sticky, heavy, gut-filling emotion that grated at the back of his throat.

But you don't start saying no to these guys. He never said no.

Or he didn't, until he got a name and a very generous fee, posted on a scrap of paper under his door in the dead of night. It was written in a hand he recognised clearly by now; this guy was a regular, practically Clint's own personal benefactor. So he packed his bag for Russia, stocked up on bullets and left. When he was at the circus he'd been taught to shoot a bow and arrow and he'd always loved it, loved the skill and precision it took and the way the bow felt in his hands. He much preferred to shoot with that than a handgun or an automatic rifle but people didn't ever hire Barton the archer.

In the snow swirls of Moscow, he watched her from afar and concluded that she was, without a doubt, the most dangerous and beautiful woman he'd ever seen. She worked best in the dead of night, he observed, and even better when she was alone under the stars. She was not to be trifled with, but then, neither was Clint.

When they fought she very nearly killed him. Twice. But eventually he overpowered her and when the time came for him to pull the trigger, he felt no remorse even as he looked right into her big, sea-stormy eyes. He was not going to let a pretty face put him off. However, none of this steely determination had mattered as he was interrupted when someone else's men burst onto the scene, evidently she was a more wanted woman then he'd been given to believe. They took the intruders down together quickly and efficiently and went their separate ways straight after the last one hit the ground, a quick look between them their only promise of a truce, and of respect for the other's prowess.

He went home, gave the money back and was only saved from having his face beaten in by some under qualified, overpaid muscles with an overworked brain cell between them, thanks to a well-placed word or two about how he preferred to have all of the info he needed for a job, before some other guy tried to blow his brains out, as well as the target's.

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

The second time he meets her they both take a while to place the other, they both saw so many new faces every day and not just the faces of their victims, but faces in airports or train stations; in hotels or bars; in cafes or restaurants. They basically got paid to take in every face they could, while keeping their own discreet and unnoticed.

This time, she wasn't his mark. He had just run into her. Literally. It had taken him a moment or two after her small frame had collided with his, backed up and they'd both pulled a gun on the other before he recognised her, but there she was bold as brass and clear as day, hair as red as it had been previously and a little longer, eyes as calculating as they had been even when she'd turned her back on him and walked away in Russia. At the time, he had half expected her to shoot him while his back was turned.

They both might have been shocked at this chance second meeting, in a completely different country, and most especially because this time, they're both after the same man, but really, given how they'd both screwed up the other's assassination plan, there really wasn't time to marvel at mere coincidence. So, they ran together, narrowly missing being crushed as debris fell from the burning building they only just managed to escape. The explosion that preceded it wasn't entirely their fault, but they certainly had a lot to do with it, and they were both quite proud of their handiwork given how long they'd had – approximately 200 seconds – to cobble together a half decent escape plan.

Though that's not to say that they don't leave quite a mess in their wake, even greater than last time and more than once, it's a close call as their mark's bodyguards chase them (while the big shot himself runs back to safety because neither had managed to get close enough to kill him.) Clint watches her back (though he's not sure why) and even saves it a couple of times too. She's grateful, even if she does not show him so. He does not know how, out of a world of seven billion people, he has met this mysterious woman, a woman he knows only as the Black Widow, twice. But he is glad that he did.

Hungary burns around them and they both have to pay the price of failure when they get home.

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

The next time they meet, it is her turn to save his arse. And boy, is he in deep, deep shit when she turns up. He's being paid by a Russian billionaire, making his money in dealing in just about everything you can think of, so long as it's immoral or illegal, to kill a man called Ivan Lebedev, his main rival.

What he has not been told is that Lebedev is one of the most powerful people in the Black Widow Ops programme. By the time he realises how powerful this guy is, he's tied to a chair and sat in the middle of a circle of six women, all of whom had been children of the Red Room and all of whom looked like they were planning the sweetest way to kill him, under the orders of Lebedev. Two looked like they just wanted to be done with him, like he was just an annoying extra to their day and that if they could shoot him, or stab him, or stone him to death right now it couldn't be soon enough. The other four looked like they'd want to drag it out, torture him in every way possible, to have him in their palm, begging for death and know that they were the only ones that owned his moment of release.

Then one walked into the room and he knew he had at least one sort-of ally in the city. She was an unbelievable actress, getting away completely free from blame after his escape – so, he stuck around long enough to make sure, so what? – because no one had realised that while she paced the darkened room, barking out orders in Russian to her inferiors, she had cut the ties that bound him to the chair and was able to hold the room's attention – it was obvious that everyone was terrified of her – long enough that he could get a head start. Once again, he had no way of knowing anything more about her except that he had bumped into her, of all people, yet again.

I was probably a good thing that neither of them believed in fate really.

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

It is not until the fourth time that he gives up wondering why the hell he keeps meeting her. It is the first time that he can hardly believe his eyes, or his luck.

It had been over a year since she'd cut the cable ties around his wrists in that dark, dank room and he does not know whether that makes the coincidence smaller or greater.

After his third failed kill, all of which had involved her, it was not only him that was sick of his status as freelance assassin. He'd pissed off quite a few 'employers' too. However, finally tired of having his services bought and no longer willing to watch the light fade from his victim's eyes, he finally tried to disappear off the radar. And, it hadn't exactly gone well for him.

It also had a lot to do with the fact that, with his last orders, he found his tipping point; maybe that' was the greatest reason why he was running. He really didn't want to kill that family hiding – no, cowering – from him in their 'safe-house' in a small town in Arizona. So make that failed kill number four. And a fairly valid explanation as to why he's all over the place right now.

He works out quickly enough why you do not refuse to kill, take the money and scram. There's a reason that you do not pull that with these people. They get paranoid; you know too much about their dealings to be anything less than a liability. They get angry; you've slighted people who are used to being surrounded by yes men every second of every day. They get vengeful; they want to show you why they're top dog.

Before he knows it he is running from about eight men (or rather, the teams they sent after him) including one mafia boss, two arms dealers and an African dictator. And if you were being picky, you could always count the covert US intelligence organisation as number nine, which he did.

That's not to mention the Black Widow Ops people he pissed off back in Albania, who seem to be tracking him while he's on the run from some particularly nasty associates of a Venezuelan drug dealer.

All in all, when he found himself stranded on the corner of the street with no means of transport and a dwindling supply of bullets, he knows he is up shit creek without a paddle. He knows he needs to get out of Arizona and fast, but he just needs to work out how. It is then that a car drives by him (he had clocked it as it was approaching from a distance and watches it driving through the dusty, deserted streets) and, much to his surprise, it slows down as it passes him. He reaches for the gun in his pocket as he sees the driver squinting to get a better look at him from where he is standing, on the passenger side of the car. They rolled the window down.

"Don't I know you?" for a moment there's a genuine question in her voice, then she smirks. "Oh God, it's you again. How the hell is this happening?"

He doesn't think he's ever heard a better greeting in all his life.

"I've, er, got myself in a tight spot," he smiled, "and you seeem have a bit of a knack of turning up when I do."

She laughed a little at this, genuine and throaty. He hadn't expected that such a sound could come from one as ferocious as her.

"You're freelance?" she asked, although she knew the answer. He nodded.

"Yeah me too, well sort of," she replied and he knew from the Albania incident that she had never truly cut her ties with the Red Room. "But it doesn't matter, really does it?" she went on. "Aren't we always in a tight spot?"

That was fair, he supposed. He could hear her accent ruffling the corners of her speech but really, her English was very good.

"You know, we really shouldn't be talking to each other here," he pointed out and she just shrugged.

"We should probably be dead. And I probably shouldn't be offering you a lift. We're either gonna get out of here alive, or we're gonna get shot. Likely as hell though that we're never gonna be in this situation again," she pointed out, a suggestion in her voice.

That was all the invitation he needed. He opened the door, slung his pack on the back seat and dropped beside her, uttering a word of thanks, still braced and tense around her, not fully sure that she wasn't going to pull a knife on him, or drive them off a cliff.

She drove quickly. Far too quickly for his liking, given that he'd never been in a car with her before. But from what he could see she was a good driver. He kept his mouth shut, waiting for her to break the silence, but she did not. It occurred to him that maybe this time it wasn't a coincidence, after all those Black Widows _had_ been on his tail.

"What exactly _were_ you doing out here, anyway?" he asked.

"Oh, same as you probably. Running from a few people. Trying to stay out of trouble, same old."

He didn't believe her for a second. She was on a mission.

"Hm, that working out okay for you is it?" he grinned and she threw him a look back. It meant a lot that she was risking her mission, and her neck, like this. It meant even more that she quite clearly knew he saw straight through her lie but she didn't try to argue, opting to flash him a wry smile instead, a beat after silence had fallen again.

She dropped him off almost a day's drive later; the sun was about to dip below the horizon in front of them. He shouldered his pack and awkwardly bent to talk into the car from the open passenger window, in the exact same position as when she had slowed down as she drove by in Arizona.

"Listen, thanks again for this and, uh, last time. I really appreciate it."

"Hey, you saved my arse too; got me out of a couple of tight spots, so I figure we're even now," she shrugged and he recognised it as a familiar gesture of hers. She didn't owe him anything now and he could tell that that was exactly how she liked it. She wanted to be on an even footing with him; didn't want debts hanging in the air. He somehow felt that he had learnt a lot about her in the silence they had shared.

Meanwhile, from her vantage point, there was something in his eyes that made her want to trust him, that much she knew for sure. But just 'cause he'd sat in a car with her for nearly seven hours and he'd bought her coffee and cake at a gas station and, after all this, he still hadn't tried to kill her once (since that first time, anyway) it didn't mean she had suddenly learnt to trust anyone, least of all a man. And an American one at that. Sure, they'd met randomly four times now – out of everyone in every country she'd ever been to (36 and counting) it was him that she couldn't shake off, but still, she was _Number 1 Most Wanted_ in 18 different countries. No matter how genuine the person, there would always be either a high enough bidder for her head (given how many enemies she'd made over the years) or a crime heinous enough that she'd committed to make someone turn on her.

"I would say that I doubt we'll ever meet again," he chuckled, his kind face and smile, his gentle laugh, all at odds with ever suspicious fibre in her body. "But with you I just can't be sure."

She laughed. Her second genuine in laugh in one day. It had been three years since someone had made her laugh. And he'd done it twice. This guy was good.

"What should I call you?" he asked, still half-laughing.

"Natasha," she lied without hesitating (not that she didn't like the name) and her quick response made him suspicious.

"That was a lie, wasn't it?"

"Maybe," she raised an eyebrow. "What does it matter?"

They were both spies, they both had so many aliases that it was hard to know who they truly were.

"True," he agreed.

"Yours?" she asked without expecting herself to. She was never not in charge of her words. That was scary.

"Clint."

"Was that a lie?" she asked, surprising herself yet again. It had to be, surely. He was so American it hurt, was anyone _that_ American actually called Clint?

"It doesn't really matter, does it?" he asked flippantly, turning away. "Thanks again…Natasha."

And they were gone again.

And if either ever believed they'd see the other a fifth time, they never entertained the thought. There was coincidence and then there was _coincidence. _They weren't stupid. Never believed they'd need each other again, now that they were even and Clint was trying to leave his assassin days behind him.

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

It had been three years since their impromptu road trip together.

Though they would never admit it, they often thought of the other; never knowing if they were alive or dead, but secretly hoping for the former, never imagining the latter, their paths never crossing.

He is in a very different place. Better; surer; safer.

She is in much the same place as she had always been, but she is running from jobs and old employers more often, hating her lifestyle more frequently with every day that passed. She is tired. She is angry that this is the life she never chose. She is certain that, any day now, someone would catch her and she would die. She is ready for it. She craves it and yet she never allows herself to get caught. She is Clint, when she picked him up, three years previously.

Not for the first time in his life, he is told the words 'she's dangerous and she's sabotaged our work. I need you to kill the Black Widow.'

Not for the first time in his life, he agrees, packs up his weapons and begins tracking her. He finally catches up with her in Belgrade.

She knows she's being tailed the moment he gets into the city, of course she does. Even at her last tether she's still that good. She's also still good at hiding, but he's better rested, better equipped and better supported.

He corners her in a dark alley. She has a gun in her hand but they both know that she only has as many bullets as she has firearms. So she does not shoot into the shadows where he's lurking, will not waste her only shot. He speaks as he emerges into the moonlight.

"You're looking tired. Keeping out of trouble going well for you then?"

She still does not see him well and therefore does not reply.

"See, we have this knack of being there when the other is in trouble. And it's worked out well thus far, I'd say."

She doesn't lower the gun when she finally recognises him. He would have been surprised except he isn't, after all he did have an arrow aimed at her heart. Nonetheless, he did register a ghost of some happier emotion that played on her face for the briefest of seconds.

In a moment, his handler, one Agent Phil Coulson was speaking in his ear.

"Don't engage her, Hawkeye. She can talk you out of anything." He ignores it, turning his comms off. He is gonna be in so much shit when he gets back to base. He'll be debriefed for the next few centuries at least. His action doesn't escape her notice.

"Are you here to kill me, Clint?" she asked and didn't sound like the idea really bothered her. Well, if had to be anyone…

She could almost say she was happy it was him; the closest thing to an ally she ever had.

"Officially, yes. I take my orders from SHIELD now, and they're not too happy with you."

She just nods, lowering her gun slightly.

"You're really that tired, huh?" he was a bit shocked. She must be, what? mid-twenties. He didn't know her specific story but he knew the Red Room, was better acquainted now that he'd put an arrow in the throats of a couple of their best child snatchers.

A single nod again.

"Yeah, I've been there." He didn't have to tell her that.

"You're not now, though," she observed plainly. She was happy for him, he'd cheated the system, great.

"Yeah, I guess I got lucky," he admitted and a look told her that part of that was down to her. She half-smiled at him. He really did seem like a nice guy.

"I wondered if we'd meet again," she admitted. To him it sounded like the farewell she had intended it to be.

"I'm glad they asked me to find you," he told her, still not willing to let go of his bow.

She thought he was just being kind. Of all the men to find her, he was the only one who would offer her a quick death. But he went on.

"'Cause, see, I sorta wanted to offer you a lift outta here."

She couldn't hide her shock this time.

"And what does SHIELD say about that?"

"I don't know. Don't know if I care. I've spent a lot of time doing the wrong thing."

"And you think this is the right thing? You know what I've done, right? And you think saving me is the right thing?"

"Saving someone doesn't just mean not killing them, Natasha." He does not know, did not know from the outset, whether this favour would be too big for her, whether she would accept his offer, knowing the size of the debt it would incur, in her mind anyway. "Why don't you try choosing your own path for once, rather than letting others choose it for you?"

Well, that did sound nice to her. She lowered her gun and nodded almost imperceptibly.

"What exactly _were_ you doing here, anyway?" it was her turn to ask this time and her choice of words did not escape him, even if it had been three years since he'd spoken those precise words to her. "You should have told your bosses the truth, shouldn't you? So what're you doing here?"

"Oh, same as you probably. Running from a few people. Trying to stay out of trouble, same old."

She didn't believe him for a second. He was on a mission.

**A/N: Well that's it, please leave a review letting me know what you think as they truly do make my day! Thanks for reading!**


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